Falsehoods and False Unity

Hands Off the People of Iran's Yassamine Mather replies to Sean Matgamna in today's Weekly Worker:

"In Iran there is a saying used when someone makes a comment based on a number of falsehoods, leading to an even sillier conclusion. It goes like this: ‘Khassan and Khossein are all daughters of Imam Ali.’ The correct statement is: ‘Hassan and Hossein are both sons of Imam Ali.’

"I had not thought of this for many years when I read the terrible article written by Sean Matgamna of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty in last week’s paper (Solidarity July 24).

"Let us start with the falsehoods.

"1. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence would know that the current threats against Iran, led by the US administration and supported by Israel, have nothing to do with Iran’s nuclear capability. They have everything to do with the decline of the US empire and the economic crisis it faces, while Israel is jumping on the bandwagon to get rid of its old foe. Had there been no nuclear development in Iran, the US would find another excuse for waging war on Iran." Read more

Mather: one, Matgamna: nil.

“We don’t want war,” says the AWL. “But if Israel attacks Iran, who are we to condemn it?”

In the week when Barack Obama’s world tour focussed the Western media’s eye on the Middle East, Solidarity, the paper belonging to everyone’s favourite leftists, the Alliance for Workers Liberty, contains their own unique attempt at a discerning tract on Iran, Israel and the possibility of nuclear war.

Solidarity 24/07/08

Written by AWL patriarch, Sean Matgamna, ‘What if Israel bombs Iran?’ (Page 6) appears to have as its premise the dubious “Iran is developing nuclear weapons… Iran will absolutely use them against Israel, unless Israel strikes first.” Forget that on the back page of the very same issue of Solidarity, Rhodri Evans (AWL) reminds us of the official US government report stating that Iran has probably stopped any efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Believable enough if you happen to be a US imperialist, but not if you happen to be in the AWL. They know better.

It can only be assumed that the opening paragraph of ‘What if Israel bombs Iran?’ is the AWL’s entry to the competition for stating the bleeding obvious. An attack on Iran, Matgamna writes, will most likely lead to ‘great carnage in the Middle East’, there will be large scale ‘civilian… casualties’ and all of this will undoubtedly license a crack down on its opponents by the Iranian regime. Agreed.

It is here, however, that the consensus must end. This is the point at which the article (if this pathetic collection of platitudes warrants that title) descends into weak and on-the-defensive denunciations of the rest of the left. Matgamna asks us this- ‘if the Israeli airforce attempts to stop Iran developing the capacity to wipe it out with a nuclear bomb, in the name of what alternative would we condemn Israel?’ He follows this question with a list of possible names in which an Israeli attack might be condemned, including but not limited to, unconditional pacifism, utopian socialism (the “socialism” practised by “socialists”, as Matgamna sees it), the ‘kitsch’ view that Israel has no right to exist and hysterical anti-imperialism. Now, since I like to think I am a genuine Socialist, neither kitsch nor hysterical, I offer an alternative name in which to condemn any pre-emptive strike on Iran: genuine and principled internationalism. Not wanting to see working class Iranians massacred in the streets, perhaps? Or is that notion a little too hysterical for the likes of Matgamna?

When the AWL’s luminary casts his condescending gaze over the anti-imperialist Left and labels us all fools, he gives credence to the opinions of Nick Cohen and the pro-war left, and to the manufacturers of war in the White House and our own Cabinet. ‘Socialists should not want [war] and can not support it,’ Matgamna assures us, but since he has just spent eleven paragraphs explaining why we shouldn’t condemn any attack on Iran, his words sound a little false to our anti-imperialist ears.

It seems to me that there should be no place in the workers’ movement, absolutely none, for those who believe that imperialism can ever, ever play a positive role for the working class. And, whatever the AWL might like to say, a refusal to condemn an imperialist attack by Israel is tantamount to an endorsement of it. End of story.

On the back page of the same paper, Rhodri Evans brings us ‘Iran, Israel and Nuclear Weapons’. Highlighting an Israeli attack on a Syrian nuclear development site where there were ‘few civilian casualties’ (not no civilian casualties, but equally not enough to offend a pro-Zionist bias), Rhodri invests a ridiculous amount of trust in a country that is still something of an unknown quantity- an imperialist wildcard in the Middle East. Do we trust the lives of the Iranian working class to the whims of the Israeli ruling class? Absolutely not. And besides, an article with its credibility hinging on the level of threat to Israel posed by the Iranian regime, should perhaps think better of the sources it quotes: reading an extract from an Israeli paper stating ‘[Iranian] Shihab missiles are not considered particularly reliable... The Shihab’s guidance system is not very accurate…’ doesn’t exactly lend coherence to the argument that Iran is a giant threat looming on the horizon, and Israel cannot be blamed for the action it takes.

BBC: "Little internal opposition to Iranian regime"

Yesterday in Iran, 29 criminals were hanged at the notorious Evin prison, just north of Tehran. This appears to be part of a crackdown by the deeply repressive Iranian state; a warning to its people by a regime facing the threat of imminent war. For more information, see the BBC report.

The televised version of the BBC report included an interview assuring us that there is little resistance to the Iranian regime beyond the "grumblings of taxi drivers" and Shirin Ebadi; this is a fairly dubious assertion (and piece of pro-imperialist propaganda) considering June and July have been two months of militant workers' action in Iran. Although the strike at the Iran Khodro car plant commencing on July 28th has been the most widely reported, industrial action has also been taken by workers across a number of different industries, including steel, sugar cane, iron, tires, communications and elastics. The imprisonment of trade unionists such as Mansour Osanloo and the actions of the Freedom and Equality Seeking Students would, it seems, testify that there is opposition to the deeply reactionary regime in the very heart of Iran.

For more news on Iran's trade union movement see LabourStart Iran.

SWP document missing, presumed dead

A reliable source informs me that the SWP launched a ten point 'People Before Profit' charter at this year's Marxism. I can find no trace of it on the internet. Does anyone have a copy of this mysterious document?

Convention is too Left for Stop the War

The activities of Manchester Stop the War, like its parent organisation, are usually kept for the anointed few to plan behind closed doors. On Saturday, however, a public meeting was scheduled, and the rest of us mere mortals invited to have a say in the planning of a September demonstration and, importantly, to help decide what should happen in the event of an attack on Iran. Diligently, we turned up, not expecting a great deal of grassroots involvement, but curious about any Iran meeting addressed by Lindsey German, Stop the War’s convenor and notorious apologist for, well, most things.

In the course of the meeting’s first twenty minutes, all our suspicions were proved correct. German and luvvies spent a great deal of time explaining that war is bad, Stop the War is good, and demonstrations (dwindling or otherwise) are cause for celebration. When a few comrades expressed doubt about the efficacy of protests without industrial action, and concern about Stop the War’s inability to mobilise the thousands of supporters it once could, their legitimate worries were quashed.

Stop the War hasn’t failed, German assured us. The organisation’s great success has been to change the public mindset, to make anti-war sentiments mainstream… After all, you wouldn’t say that the continued existence of fascism renders the totality of anti-fascist organisations failures? You wouldn’t say the CND “no to Trident” campaign failed? Well, Lindsey, we would actually. The renewal of Trident did indeed herald the failure of CND’s anti-nuclear campaign. The rise of the fascist British National Party is indicative of the weakness, yes, the total failure, of the UK’s anti-fascist groups. In the same way, the continued occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq show that Stop the War has completely and utterly failed to stop the imperialists in their tracks. In fact, if Stop the War hasn’t failed thus far then the whole thing is a bit of a misnomer; if the point was just to hold some feel-good demonstrations and mildly inconvenience a few politicians, they should have named it Slightly Annoyed at the War Coalition UK and left it at that.

German’s bizarre logic, however, did not end there. According to her, Stop the War is a supporter of industrial action against the war. This is quite an interesting development; many comrades will remember the Central Committee’s implicit role in voting down a Workers Power motion calling for strike action at the 2007 Annual Conference.

The topic of debate then turned to the Manchester Convention of the Left, timed to coincide with the Labour Party conference this September. Stop the War, which has in the past endorsed a whole number of dubious initiatives, will not be officially endorsing the Convention. It appears the presence of the word “left” in the title could jeopardise the Coalition’s broad base of support; in other words, a few Labourites and Lib Dems might get cold feet. Well that’s interesting. You see, Stop the War didn’t ask how many Iranian exiles were alienated by their decision to invite Iranian State television to last year’s AGM. They didn’t ask how many women, Jews, and LGBT comrades were appalled by the inclusion of Hezbollah on a national speaking tour. And they never queried how many working-class activists were offended when Conservative Michael Ancram was invited to speak at the People’s Assembly. Pandering to the right-wing it seems is perfectly acceptable; accommodating those to the left, unforgivable.

The fact that we all know, absolutely and unequivocally, is this: Stop the War would endorse the Convention of the Left without a moment’s hesitation if the Socialist Workers Party was at its forefront. It really is that simple. Until the SWP get a grip on the Convention, Stop the War’s leaders will scupper all attempts to mobilise in favour of addition to the Convention’s list of supporters. The meeting’s chair, for instance, the Left Alternative’s Nahella Ashraf, outright refused calls for a democratic vote on the question, or even for a separate meeting to discuss the issue. After this, there was a call of no confidence in the chair, which Ashraf, out of her depth and fearful of democracy, subsequently ignored. After a few more platitudes, the meeting was brought to an end.

Afterwards, Hands Off the People of Iran supporter, Chris Strafford, received an apology from Manchester Stop the War convenor, Mark Krantz. Some weeks earlier, Strafford had been removed from a Stop the War stall on which he was volunteering. He has been an active member of Stop the War since 2001.

Left list no longer a “list” - it’s an “alternative”

I recently moved from a house with a serious damp problem to a house that appears to be built on a slant; from one property nightmare to another. The old house, however, was probably the worst of the two. It came complete with a mouldy bathroom and a landlady who wasn’t especially keen to get it fixed. It took much nagging before a plumber finally appeared on my doorstep, came in, examined the problem, and left in the space of five minutes. The next day, he returned, scraped off the mould and painted the wall.

A week later, it had reverted back to its fetching shade of green.

You might think I’m going off on a tangent, that my self-proclaimed “politics blog” has descending into a largely uninteresting story about my old bathroom. But no, there is in fact a point to all this. My old bathroom is - wait for it - the Left Alternative. Yes indeed, comrades, the Left List, the Socialist Workers Party’s failed electoral front, has had a change of name. It’s no longer a list but an alternative- sorry the left alternative.

And, if my old bathroom is the SWP, my landlady is - you guessed it - the Central Committee, the Harmans, Ninehams and Germans of this world. And just as a token scrape and a coat of paint failed to remedy the damp in my bathroom, a name change certainly won’t provide the magic Jim’ll fix it solution they’re after. Plummeting membership, the raw deal in the Respect split (they got the website, Galloway got the name) and a leadership that is rotten to the core cannot be disguised with a quick lick of paint.

The outcome of the Respect debacle could have been a turn to the left. Instead, we are still witnessing the subordination of class consciousness to cheap politics, and cadre members parroting the shallow propaganda of so-called popular fronts.

So what is the Left Alternative an alternative to? Is it the next in a long line of SWP alternatives to Labour, to the “party of war and privatisation” as they like to say? Or is it the alternative to the rest of us, the smaller fragments on the much-fragmented left? Practically speaking, the answer has to be neither. The diabolical failure of the Left List’s local election results illustrates its hollowness as an electoral vehicle and, crucially, its lack of working class support. On the other hand, where is the appeal to the rest of us, the socialists and communists, witnessing the SWP implode with all the morbid fascination one usually reserves for a particularly nasty car crash?

Calling something an alternative, I’m afraid, doesn’t mean it magically becomes one. In fact, a few SWP councillors seem to be finding some rather interesting alternatives of their own recently: Labour and even the Tories. All of which leads to one conclusion. It wasn’t a name change the Left List needed; it was a change in politics.